Tories to bring back Grammar schools

[apelike]

Well, at first, it looked like the Tories would try to bring back Grammar schools by the back door. But now, they`ve abandoned that, they`re doing it through the front door, loud and proud !

Let`s bear a few things in mind :

 

They have no mandate for this. It wasn`t put forward in their last manifesto

 

 

Just like the EU referendum a party manifesto is not legally binding so that bit is not important.

 

What is important is encouraging and helping those that have potential to improve while at the same time giving support to and helping those that are struggling. At the moment the need to prioritise help for the latter is generally at the expense of the former.

 

---------- Post added 08-09-2016 at 20:55 ----------

 

As always nothing is perfect and it's about choosing the least broken system.

 

Both main parties spent a couple of decades dismantling the old system, for solid reasons.

 

But what were those solid reasons?

 

It can't magically be better this time,

 

Why not? Education and educational needs change with time, now we have academy's which are directly funded and outside LA control.

[BoroB]

The principle you are advocating is that it's morally wrong as an adult to deny other adults the right to make the choices that adults made when you were a child. Or is it not a general principle and just a one-off principle regarding grammar schools only, and if so why?

 

No its morally wrong to say 'do as I say not as I did'.

 

Corbyn junior's parents had two options: a failing school or a successful one. Guess which one Jeremy's son ended up going to? The failing school just happened to be a Secondary and the successful one just happened to be a Grammar. If the roles were reversed no doubt Corbyn junior would have gone to the successful Secondary.

 

Let parents decide, if they have the option, whether a Grammar school is the best option for their child.

[RJRB]

My experience of grammar school is that I went to one,and my experience of comprehensives is that both my children went to one.

Going back to my own school days,out of a class of around 30 children , I think eight of us passed the 11+,and the rest went to one of several local secondary moderns.

Did this mean that us eight became high fliers and the rest were consigned to the dust bin.

Of course it didn't.

Many years later I am still in touch with many and we enjoy a similar standard of living having pursued various careers.

I was certainly no academic,but I got a little better than the requisite minimum of 5 GCE O levels including English and Maths that was required for many clerical jobs at that time.

 

The range of academic abilities at grammar school was enormous.Only the top few in the A stream were candidates for a university place,and those at the bottom of the D stream were lucky to get a GCE pass at all.

The big difference then was that you didn't need to have a university degree to get an interview for a decent job.

Nor did you need O levels to get an engineering or technical apprenticeship.

I am for grammar schools because it does give the academically gifted child the best chance of advancement.

However I am equally in favour of good schools that educate children in at least the basics of English and Maths that are needed and the discipline to apply their skills in the career to which they are happiest and best suited.

This country needs plumbers ,electricians,builders,drivers,etc.etc.etc.

Its not grammar schools that will be a problem,but the continued drive to direct pupils to a university degree that will not be of any use to them or the country in the future.

[Bob Arctor]

No its morally wrong to say 'do as I say not as I did'.

Corbyn junior's parents had two options: a failing school or a successful one. Guess which one Jeremy's son ended up going to? The failing school just happened to be a Secondary and the successful one just happened to be a Grammar. If the roles were reversed no doubt Corbyn junior would have gone to the successful Secondary.

 

Let parents decide, if they have the option, whether a Grammar school is the best option for their child.

 

My bold - your argument isn't rational. You are equating an 11 year old whose decision was made for them with adults who are in a position to make their own decisions. It makes no sense.

 

Re: failing schools, the point surely is to ensure as far as we can that there are no failing schools so that no-one has to choose (or have the choice made for them) that their child attends the failing one. This is the crux of the argument against grammar schools, i.e. that the very process by which they succeed necessarily creates other schools which fail. Comprehensives were created specifically to ensure that every child, whatever their background, could access a good standard of secondary education, which I think has largely been achieved.

 

All the evidence available shows that grammar schools make attainment less even. And the two most important words in the whole debate are these: private tutoring. Grammars will not end up taking the brightest and most able, even if it were desirable that schooling should be structured that way. They will take those kids whose parents could most afford to have them tutored to pass the entrance exam, it's called privilige and it belongs in history. That is how markets work and anyone who thinks markets don't work like that is either ignorant or delusional.

[apelike]

No its morally wrong to say 'do as I say not as I did'.

 

Let parents decide, if they have the option, whether a Grammar school is the best option for their child.

 

If I remember that's exactly what happened with my parents. My brother and I both passed the 11+ but he went to a Grammar school and I didn't want to so went to a Secondary Modern. When he left he took up an apprenticeship and when I left I took up an apprenticeship but back then apprenticeships were very common and easy to get.

 

---------- Post added 08-09-2016 at 21:28 ----------

 

 

Grammars will not end up taking the brightest and most able, even if it were desirable that schooling should be structured that way. They will take those kids whose parents could most afford to have them tutored to pass the entrance exam, it's called privilige and it belongs in history. That is how markets work and anyone who thinks markets don't work like that is either ignorant or delusional.

 

My parents were poor and my brother and I were not privileged or privately tutored so I don't think the above is a true reflection of how it worked in the past.

Edited September 8, 2016 by apelike

[I1L2T3]

 

But what were those solid reasons?

 

Why not? Education and educational needs change with time, now we have academy's which are directly funded and outside LA control.

 

It was unpopular even amongst affluent people, especially the middle classes. It entrenched social division and limited social mobility. All the problems with the system are evident now in the few places that still run the system, e.g. Kent

 

One educational need that hasn't changed is giving every kid the best chances. Comprehensives aren't perfect but they're not the lobster pots that secondary moderns were.

[apelike]

It was unpopular even amongst affluent people, especially the middle classes. It entrenched social division and limited social mobility. All the problems with the system are evident now in the few places that still run the system, e.g. Kent

 

One educational need that hasn't changed is giving every kid the best chances. Comprehensives aren't perfect but they're not the lobster pots that secondary moderns were.

 

Just one question.. Did you go to a Secondary Modern or a Comprehensive?

[Bob Arctor]

My parents were poor and my brother and I were not privileged or privately tutored so I don't think the above is a true reflection of how it worked in the past.

 

But it's exactly how it will work now. Think of all the middle class parents with money who move to the best catchment areas because they can. Ask yourself this: would a middle class parent with available money choose not to use it advance their child's educational opportunity?

[I1L2T3]

Just one question.. Did you go to a Secondary Modern or a Comprehensive?

 

The local grammar had gone by the time I started secondary school, but our school was the former local grammar if that makes sense. It was a comprehensive when I went and I went there because we were in the catchment area, just 2 miles away.

[Robin-H]

 

There are very few people, other than those who are desperate to see the introduction of Grammar schools who would think it right if the Tories started reintroducing them, particularly on a large scale, without a specific mandate from General Election to do so. It isn`t like the government is responding to some new set of circumstances and therefore has to take a major policy decision that was not in their manifesto.

 

Did you read the Conservative 2015 Manifesto?

 

It says they would ...'allow all good schools to expand, whether they are maintained schools, academies, faith schools or grammar schools'.

 

Granted that isn't specifically saying they would open new grammar schools, but it does indicate what the Conservative view on grammar schools is.